Senator Clinton Denies Endorsement for Consulting Fee Charge

The Hillary Clinton campaign for the presidency hit a rather nasty ethics problem in the last few days. State Senator Darrell Jackson, one of South Carolina’s most influential black politicians, has endorsed her rather than one of the other candidates. Shortly after he made his endorsement, he admitted that her campaign has given his media consulting firm a $10,000 a month contract. Senator Clinton’s people deny that there was any quid pro quo. Nonetheless, she seems to be acquiring her own moniker, “Slick Hilly.”

Mo Elleithee, a spokesman for the Clinton campaign, said Friday that the $10,000 a month will get his group Mr. Jackson’s advice on “political matters in South Carolina, outreach, organizing issues” as well as some media buys. Fair enough. And politicians like Mr. Jackson, who are relatively big fish in the small-to-medium-sized political markets like South Carolina, make endorsements all the time hoping to play a bigger role.

The trouble, apart from the fact that this kind of thing is not all that uncommon, comes from the political persona that has evolved about Hillary Rodham Clinton. She’s much like her husband and not in a good way. She speaks around the edges of the truth, she triangulates, she is slippery.

Consider her position on Iraq-Nam. The Associated Press reported:

Claire Helfman, a retired nurse who attended a Nashua house party to meet Clinton.

"I've heard your explanation for your vote: 'I didn't think I was voting for the war, I was voting for inspections.' It doesn't fly. It just doesn't fly," Helfman told Clinton.

The New York senator repeated her long-standing mantra — "If we knew then what we know now, I would never have voted to give this president the authority." And she again batted down calls for her to describe her vote as a mistake.

"I'm sorry, what I say is what I believe," she said. "I understand that some people disagree or think it's not adequate, but it's what I believe."

At a house party in Manchester on Sunday, Clinton offered an outline of what she would do as president to scale back the conflict. She vowed she would engage diplomatically with other countries in the region, relaunch the Middle East peace process and force Iraqis to take charge of their own security.

"I would tell the Iraqis, 'We are going to stop funding you unless you start doing what you've promised all these years,'" Clinton said. "I would say: 'I'm sorry, it's over. We've done all we can do for you. We liberated you, we got rid of Saddam Hussein for you, we are not going to baby-sit a civil war.'"

But she also said she would not redeploy all troops out of the region, insisting that some are still needed to quell terrorist activity in Anbar province and to protect the Kurds in northern Iraq.

"There will still be missions," she said.

She also said she was not in favor of cutting funding for Bush's proposed troop increase, despite some activists' calls to do so.